CHICAGO – Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a Public Safety Alert warning Americans of the alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine. DEA’s Public Safety Alert, the first in six years, seeks to raise public awareness of a significant nationwide surge...

St. Louis, Mo. - Saint Francis Medical Center of Southeast Missouri has agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to settle a civil suit by the United States, resolving claims under the Controlled Substances Act. The U.S. government alleged that Saint Francis employed a Farmington, Missouri, physician, Brett Dickinson, who...

MADISON, Wis. – Special Agent in Charge Robert J. Bell, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) – Chicago Division and Acting United States Attorney Timothy M. O’Shea announced that David E. Eckerle, M.D., a Madison, Wisconsin physician, entered into a settlement agreement to pay $110,000 to resolve civil allegations that he violated...

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey sentenced Denis Mikhlin to 108 months in prison today. The judge also ordered Mikhlin to pay restitution. The 41-year-old St. Louis County, Missouri, resident pleaded guilty in August to four felony counts of conspiracy, obtaining oxycodone and other opioid drugs by...

ST. LOUIS – Tamara Jo Nyachira of Pittsburg, Kansas, was sentenced today to three years’ probation, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service after pleading guilty to obtaining narcotic opioid prescription drugs with forged prescriptions before Chief United States District Judge Rodney W. Sippel. According to her plea...

Drug Enforcement Administration Acting Administrator Timothy J. Shea and Special Agent in Charge Robert J. Bell, Chicago Division, announced that the DEA will direct resources to help reduce violent crime in Chicago and communities throughout the country. Under this initiative, called Project Safeguard, DEA will identify and prioritize drug trafficking...

CHICAGO – Special Agent in Charge Robert J. Bell, DEA Chicago Division, announced today that the DEA Merrillville Resident Office and their state and local counterparts arrested the following defendants: Geoffrey O. Onyeukwu, MD, 69, Gary, Indiana; Nurse Practitioner Akeem O. Kareem, 47, Crown Point, Indiana; and Nurse Practitioner Francis...